Mercia Television Midlands/MTM (1968-present)
In 1968, the franchise round changed everything. TWW was replaced by Harlech, Granada's area was split into 2 to form Yorkshire, and Rediffusion and ABC were shotgun-merged to form Thames. Most controversially, ATV was not awarded any franchise at all. They weren't regional enough. In their place for London weekends was LWT, and 2 other companies applied for the Midlands contract: Mercia Television and Television Midlands. They were shotgun-merged to form Mercia Television Midlands, or "MTM". 1968 MTM started out as a small company. They needed a memorable symbol, but in the time being, this plain Peignot font would have to do. This lasted until the New Year. ATV continued as an independent production company, subsumed under ITC. 1969 They wanted something like ATV's shadowed eyes, ABC's triple-triangle, or Rediffusion's adastral. Many symbols were planned and rejected, when an intern joked: "Why don't you just use my cat?" They took him seriously, and this was the result. According to the designer of the ident, there was definite influence from MGM's roaring lion, similarly to how the ATV eyes were inspired by CBS. Later in 1969, MTM took over ITC, including ATV. All ATV or ITC productions were now MTM productions. 1969 The colour version arrived later that same year, and was loosely based on ATV's unused colour ident. Three circles in RGB colours on a grey background formed a white circle, which, as the background turned to blue and yellow letters "M" and "T" animated, crossfaded to a meowing kitten inside a ribbon. Along with this came the strongest regional identity ever seen on ITV, with a startup sequence featuring Midlands landmarks, an incredible amount of regional programming, and a promotional campaign for housing developments across the Midlands known as "MTMland". The MTM kitten quickly became just as iconic as the Thames skyline, the LWT stripes, the Granada G-arrow, or the Yorkshire chevron. In 1970, MTM, thanks to the power of ITC, set up an US division. Because that company's first US show produced was "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", many Americans thought the "MTM" initials stood for "Mary Tyler Moore". 1979 After the ITV strike, the ident was changed to match that of the US division. "IN COLOUR" was removed, as by this point, most people had colour TVs anyway. This was used until 1989. During the late 1980s, the ITA allowed MTM and Television South to consolidate slightly into a new venture: TVS Entertainment. It originally managed advertising sales for the two regions but was allowed a reverse takeover of both companies; they did however retain their own studio bases, management, boards and on-screen identity. 1989 In 1989, the TVS parent company was reorganized: Television South became TVS Television, and Mercia Television Midlands was taken under the wing of its US division and became MTM Enterprises Television. 1989 MTM, like its sister station TVS, did not adopt the 1989 Generic ident, instead focusing on a distinct regional look. Therefore, this dubious incorporation of the MTM kitten and letters into the ITV triangle was never seen on-screen. 1993 In 1993, TVS had lost their franchise to Meridian. However, TVS Entertainment still owned MTM. On January 2, 1993, Meridian's parent company, advertising firm MAI, acquired TVS Entertainment. Under MAI ownership, the failing US unit was sold to International Family Entertainment and "MTM Enterprises Television" was reorganized as "MTM Midlands Television". MAI would later acquire Anglia before merging with a newspaper company to become United News and Media, which grew to control HTV as well before being acquired by Granada. 1999 This was MTM's version of the Hearts idents, taken along with the other UNM and Granada regions. 2002 The ITV1 version of the hearts. In 2003, what was left of regional identity ended, and MTM became "ITV1 Midlands". Later, in 2004, Carlton merged with Granada to form ITV plc.